Name Michal Aviad Role Director | Spouse Shimshon | |
 | ||
Movies Invisible, The Women Pioneers, For My Children, Heart of the Country, Acting Our Age Similar People Jenya Dodina, Ronit Elkabetz, Jonathan Bar Giora, Sivan Levy, Erez Laufer | ||
Eric Goldman's Jewish Cinematheque: Michal Aviad "Working Woman"
Michal Aviad is director, script writer, producer and senior lecturer at the Department of Cinema and Television, Tel Aviv University.
Contents
- Eric Goldmans Jewish Cinematheque Michal Aviad Working Woman
- WORKING WOMAN MICHAL AVIAD INTERVIEW
- Biography
- Filmography
- Articles on the Movies selection
- References
WORKING WOMAN MICHAL AVIAD INTERVIEW
Biography
Michal Aviad was born in Jerusalem in 1955. Her mother was an immigrant from Italy and her father an immigrant from Hungary. She graduated in 1981 in literature and philosophy from Tel Aviv University. In 1984, she received a Master of Film from San Francisco State University. Between 1981 and 1990 she lived and worked in San Francisco where she made her first film. Since 1991, she has been a lecturer at the department of Cinema and Television at Tel Aviv University. Aviad’s films bring to light the complex relationships between women issues and other major social-political issues such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Filmography
Acting Our Age (1987, 60 min, production and direction)
Acting Our Age is Aviad's first movie, which she produced and directed in the United States. The film deals with the experience of aging among women, and tackles age-linked stereotypes and discrimination. The film received several prizes and was the first to be broadcast within the prestigious documentary slot POV (Point of View) on the American public network PBS. It was broadcast in several international festivals including the Sundance Film Festival and the Telluride film festival in the USA.
The Women Next Door (1992, 80 min, production and direction
The film deals with the involvement of women, both as conquerors and as conquered, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It takes place during the First Intifada. The film was screened in many festivals including Jerusalem, Munich, São Paulo, Chicago, Calcotta, and INPUT 93, and got the Prize of Peace in the International Film Festival in Berlin. It was broadcast on many television stations in the world, including coast-to-coast broadcasting in the US, but never in Israel.
Ever Shot Anyone? (1995, 60 min, direction)
Produced by Amit Goren, this documentary explores Israeli male culture from a woman’s point of view. The video was part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, Feminale, the Liepzig Film Festival, INPUT ’96, London Jewish Film Festival, Washington Jewish Film Festival, Flaherty film Seminar and many others. It was aired in Canada, Israel, Holland, Denmark, Russia and other countries.
Jenny and Jenny (1997, 60 mn)
A film on two teenage working-class Israeli girls, Jenny and Jenny was awarded Best Israeli Documentary for 1997 from the Israel Film Institute. It was part of the Jerusalem International Film Festival, Denver Film Festival, Boston Film Festival, Feminale, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Films des Femmes in France and INPUT ’98. To date it was aired in Germany, Sweden and Israel.
Ramleh (2001, 60 min, direction and coproduction)
Produced with the help of the Soros Documentary Fund, Ramleh is a social-political film about the lives of four women in the town of Ramleh, a Jewish- Arab town, and a powerful example to the disintegration of a country of displaced people torn by religious, national and cultural differences. The film was part of the Jerusalem International Film Festival, FIPA 2002, Munich, Prague, Istanbul, Milano, Mumbai, Kalamata, Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York and others.
For My Children (2002, 66 min, production and direction)
This is personal film about the history and events in the life of one family of immigrants and refugees as seen through the prism of the first days of the new Intifada. The film is co-produced with Israel and ZDF-ARTE. So far the film took part in the Leipzig film Festival, MoMa Documentary Series, Boston & Washington Jewish Film Festivals, San Francisco International Film Festival, Munich Documentary, Visions du réel documentary film festival in Nyon, Switzerland, INPUT 03, Istanbul Documentary, Berlin Cinematheque, Palestinian- Israeli Film Festival in Paris and Brussels and others.
Lemon Delicacy (2008, 20 min, experimental documentary)
People and details of life are captured at a Tunisian sandwich Kiosk, in the market of the town of Ramleh. The crowd of Jewish and Arab dislocated persons and refugees are a microcosm of Israel, exposed of its ideological clichés. Through the kiosk the director combines a reality represented by her and her memory of it. The film was part of an exhibit at the Petah Tikwa Museum of Modern Art in Israel, and premiered at the international festival DocAviv in Tel Aviv in April 2008.
Invisible (2011, 90 min, direction) AKA Lo Roim Alaich
Ronit Elkabetz and Evgenia Dodina star in this story where two women are brought together over a shared trauma; they were both victims of a serial rapist twenty years earlier. Their characters are fictional but the rapist is real, having killed 16 women and girls in Tel Aviv between 1977-1978. Therefore, actual victim testimonies are interlaced into the film.
Articles on the Movies (selection)
For articles in Hebrew see entry on Aviad in Wikipedia Hebrew.
On Ever Shot Anyone
On For My Children